


Middle Field

by orphan_account



Category: NSYNC
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-10
Updated: 2010-03-10
Packaged: 2017-10-07 20:45:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>JC and his gay panic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Middle Field

They even didn't need to be drunk anymore. When NSYNC was in between albums, Chris showed up at JC's place on Saturday nights and things happened. It was a pattern they fell into comfortably, even if each encounter was always different.

Chris on the front porch, a slightly sheepish smile on his face. JC walking forward, with many a glance back. A black leather couch made for two. A coffee table with a few Buds, for old time's sake more than anything else. A tentative hand feathered with dark hairs, reaching for a silky pale stomach. Blue eyes kaleidoscopic with passion, meeting hot, dark ones in return. A beard rustling, tickling the delicate skin of the nape. Harsh gasps. Moans trapped in a cupped palm, or suppressed on the couch fabric or in a wet kiss. Bites, fingernail marks like reddish crescent moons on the shoulder, the chest, in secret places JC would inspect in the morning.

JC cleaned his living room on Sunday mornings, humming light, whimsical melodies.

* * *

 

In the beginning, the Buds were as convenient a crutch as music was, but only for the inexplicably hot sex with Chris, or so it seemed to JC. It wasn't of any use for the heterosexual panic attacks.

"I'm gay, I'm gay, I'm gay," JC repeated after the first night, grabbing a shirt to cover himself. He said with such a tone of disbelief, of anger, and of desperation all mingling into one harsh, broken repetition of the same syllables. He dressed panicked, forgetting to slip the buttons into the holes, zipping halfway with his white boxers peeking through obscenely. He looked at Chris, who was still naked on the couch, rubbing his temples. "Get dressed, you fucker." JC grabbed anything from the floor and threw it at Chris, who just sighed resignedly under the clothes. He tripped over a beer bottle and cursed, and cursed even more when he saw how many littered the carpeted floor.

He raced through his house in a fevered rush. Jumbled, frantic thoughts filled his head, all about old church sermons and salty skin and how Chris knew what buttons to press and just how hard to push, until all his thoughts became a cacophony. He opened the doors to rooms he never meant to go into and looked at the furniture there, doing the same to every room until he reached his linen closet and looked blankly at the sheets folded neatly on top of the other.

No, he thought. No, no, NO.

"There was nothing wrong with what we just did," Chris yelled from somewhere in the house.

"Shut the fuck up!" He heard his voice break and hated the sign of weakness.

"There was nothing wrong with what we just did," Chris repeated, this time a bit closer and stressing each syllable a bit more carefully.

I'm not going to cry, he thought. All the same, he shut the door to the linen closet and slid down to the floor.

He heard soft footsteps padding closer to him and couldn't find the strength to run away. Chris knelt down in front of him and ran his fingers over the sides of JC's face, his fingers like whispers on JC's skin.

"JC. There's nothing wrong with what we did." Chris's voice was an unusually low hum. "Unless-" Chris paled all of a sudden, "unless-"

"I wanted to. That's the problem," JC said.

"It's not a problem." Chris sat down Indian style in front of him, dressed only in his jeans. A soft layer of flesh around his middle, spiky hair all in weird tufts, a line of dried saliva down one side of his mouth, chest hair matted with what JC couldn't quite say even in his own head yet. This is not attractive, he thought, reiterating it in his head.

Chris smiled, and his smiles always looked puckish, and when JC felt himself melt at the sight, he knew he was lying to himself.

"I think I need a beer," JC said.

"No, not anymore," Chris replied.

* * *

 

Not that JC drank a lot anyway. He was always the first to get tipsy, always the first to act the fool. In the morning, he was usually the first one racing to the bathroom to throw up.

Once, during the NSA tour, JC had decided to imbibe a little. With the music and the dancing though, he got thirsty and drank more alcohol than he usually did. Joey had ushered him to Chris saying "C's drunk, and he's really annoying, and he keeps asking for you so here," and unceremoniously dumped a grinning JC besides Chris.

"C, you said you were going to drink a little," Chris yelled near JC's ear.

"I forgot!" JC replied giddily.

"I'm taking you home," Chris said decisively.

When they were in the rented limo on the way to their hotel, JC sat beside Chris and just smiled at him.

Chris shook his head and said, "Two Long Island iced teas and you're anybody's date."

JC, drunk on two Long Island iced teas at the time, nodded happily, nuzzled Chris on the neck and said "You sound like Billie Holiday from here." He heard Chris chuckle before he fell asleep.

* * *

 

Later on, in the middle of their relationship, when Saturday nights on the couch were a regular thing, Chris suggested experimenting.

"Chris, this is enough of an experiment to me," JC said when Chris suggested they try using props. An odd, shuttered look crept into Chris's eyes. JC realized how that sounded and hurried to apologize. "I didn't mean like you were an experiment, I mean, this thing going on is still new to me and it's just still really new," he paused for his next breath, seeing that Chris wasn't entirely pacified yet and continued, "and I haven't even really tried all of the vanilla yet and you're saying whipped cream already and I didn't mean it that way-"

"Enough," Chris said. "You get on that track, we'll be here for ages. I get what you're saying."

JC tried not to sigh with relief.

"Jesus, Jayce. I'm not saying whips, leather and chains. I'm saying 69; I'm saying whipped cream. Something...interesting," Chris said with raised eyebrows. "Besides, what we're doing is so far away from vanilla. C, there are two dicks involved. There's built-in kink here."

"What do you want to do?" JC asked, his voice shaking a little.

"Trust me. I know what I'm doing," Chris said.

Before JC could ask how and where, Chris pushed him back onto the armrest and kissed him. JC usually didn't like kisses with lots of tongue because it felt like there was two frisky slugs wrestling in his mouth, but as usual, with Chris, things were different. They kissed wetly and loudly, Chris being a passionate kisser who bunched his fingers in JC's long hair tightly, who plastered himself all over JC trying to eradicate any space between their bodies.

Chris stopped for a minute to take off JC's shirt. He then unfastened JC's pants and pulled them and JC's underwear down as far as he could, and smiled devilishly as he revealed JC's cock.

It was interesting, JC thought, how easily Chris could push him over the edge like this. He didn't want to look down, so he stared at the ceiling, relaxing back against the couch. He tried to keep a leash on his reactions, realizing the futility of it all the same.

He heard Chris fumbling with the beer bottles, the distinctive clink of glass against glass interrupting the pounding noise the blood made in his head. "Good, it's warmer," he heard Chris mumble distinctively. He felt Chris's hand on his cock, the thumb stroking gentle circles, occasionally pumping gently. He heard Chris take a gulp, but he didn't hear a swallow. He started panting, sort of knowing what was coming and dreading it and wanting it and just not knowing what to do except lie there and wait, just wait out these brutal seconds between anticipation and execution.

Strong hands grasped his ass and his breath hitched. He closed his eyes.

Soft lips touched his cock and he gasped.

A mouth enveloped him with warm beer and his hips jutted up, his eyes opening in shock. Oh God, the fizzing, he thought inarticulately. Chris held on tight and didn't let go, not that JC could do much of anything except lie back, grab Chris's head tightly and not let go.

The rest of it was a feverish rush of Chris slowing down and speeding up, a finger going up in a place he didn't know could feel so good, hitting a pressure spot that sent tremors and currents of pleasure that unfurled like the arch of his spine off the couch when Chris hit the spot the first time, that sent sparks of fire and lightning racing, coursing along with his blood, and then Chris timed it perfectly so that his finger hooked and his tongue lolled at the same time, each hitting a point so perfectly that bright lights seemed to flare up and--

"Oh God," JC said raggedly.

Sunday morning after that night, there were beer stains and holes caused by blunt fingernails on the leather couch. JC got a Post-it and stuck it on his fridge, reminding himself to call an upholsterer on Monday.

* * *

 

They never really talked about it all that much.

"You ever wonder why we're doing what we do?" went one conversation JC started. It was a Monday morning and they were both in JC's kitchen eating scrambled eggs and toast.

"We like doing it."

"How long do you think it will be like this?"

"Hell if I know." Chris bit lustily on his toast.

"What about the other guys?" JC asked curiously.

"They don't need to know."

"We ever going to talk about the beer?"

"What about it?"

"The fact that we were drunk when this all started. Sometimes, it doesn't feel, I don't know. Just, not real sometimes. Like I'm still drunk sometimes."

"I choose to take that optimistically." Chris grabbed the orange juice and drank directly from the bottle. "Now is not the time to have this conversation, C. Not in the morning, not when I'm hungry, not when you're sitting there with no shirt on eating toast. Nope."

JC smiled self-consciously. "Sorry. You want me to put something on?"

"Did you hear me complaining?" Chris asked. "Just saying, not the time right now."

"Okay. But still, we have to at least add-"

"Jayce?"

"Yeah?"

"I think Selfish is pretty good. I hope it makes it on the new album."

JC stared at Chris for a bewildered moment. "Um, thanks." It took him a bit to figure out Chris's strategy, and when it clicked in he said, "You're being pretty obvious, just so you know."

"Only way it works with you, Chasez," Chris said, with a swift kiss on the mouth for good measure.

* * *

 

When the relationship ended, JC didn't have a clue. He loved Saturday nights and their long idle Sundays. But then, JC had a history of missing vital clues, especially when he was obliviously happy.

He didn't notice the looks Chris gave him when JC would go out with Justin during the week. The way Chris followed him with slower steps with each progressive Saturday. The little exasperated roll of the eyes that Chris did when JC joked about beer and how it was ultimately responsible for them getting together in the first place. The snappish tone that was becoming background noise in Chris's voice.

Their Saturday night rolled along, but this time, the timing seemed off. Chris didn't follow him this time. He stood at the doorway, silently glowering at JC who was already on his way to the couch.

"JC, I'm not doing this."

JC turned around, confused. He walked back to his doorway, noticing Chris's angry eyes and rigid shoulders. "How come? What's wrong?"

"You can't be this clueless, JC."

That stung. "Well, I guess I am this time. What's your problem?"

Chris laughed in disbelief. "Shit! I don't believe you." He walked to his car with furious strides, leaving JC staring at him in shock.

"Wait! Chris, what? I don't know what I did."

"Fuck off then, if you don't know." Chris got into his car and slammed the door. He drove out of JC's driveway dangerously. Desperately.

JC was left behind, trying to reassemble something he didn't even know was breaking.

***

 

Right before their first time, JC had just bought a lot of things for his house to make it feel lived in. All the guys had come at one point or another to drop off their own gifts for the "re-housewarming" as Chris called it. Justin and Britney came along with a painting of an artist they knew JC loved. Joey got him a pile of Star Wars memorabilia "so you can have a Star Wars room!" The ever-pragmatic Lance got him the best computer there was in the market, along with a great desk and chair. Chris got him a huge cactus plant plus a lot of good copper cooking ware.

"Why pots and pans?" JC had asked. "I only cook scrambled eggs and toast."

"Kitchen is always where it should start. That's where people do the most living," Chris had said with a chuckle. "You, especially, need to start living more in the kitchen."

JC had smiled at that then, because he knew the other guys worried about how skinny he was getting.

"Where do you want the cactus?" Chris hollered.

"Um, put it near the side table beside my couch for now. It will get a lot of sun there."

"Okay." JC heard him grunting and heaving, and then him clapping his hands to get rid of the dirt.

JC went into his living room and looked at all the stuff the guys had left for him and felt so lucky right at that moment. "You want a beer?"

"Sure," Chris had replied. JC took a case of beer from his fridge and went to the living room. He put them on the side table and looked at the cactus plant, liking its soothing green color. Chris opened two beers and joined him.

"Every house needs a plant," Chris said.

***

 

"Chris?" JC kept knocking on the door. "Come on, open up!

The other side was silent.

He stayed for an hour or so before giving up. When he went home, he kept calling Chris and leaving messages on his answering machine. Somewhere in between those rambling monologues, when he went through the relationship from middle to beginning to end, hindsight glared at him because it was suddenly easy to see the clues that glowed like radiation.

On his last call before he went back to Chris's house, he said, "I screwed up. I'm sorry. Look, I'm on my way there, and I figured it out okay, so please just let me in if you're there when I get there. At least give me a chance to prove I'm not completely clueless." He paused for a little while, not knowing what else to say over the phone that he hadn't already said. "I'll be there in a few minutes, okay?"

He broke a few speed limit laws on his way back.

***

 

When they first had sex, it was awkward and not at all what JC expected sex would be like with a man. Not that he hadn't tried before, but those efforts were shunted to the side. Eyeliner Guy in Germany, who put on way too much eye makeup and hummed a Cure song when JC went down on him, but JC had loved the way his eyes looked with the makeup. There was a bellboy in a hotel in Omaha, who had sincerely loved their music and went down on JC with adoration sparkling clear and bright, but harbored no illusions about contact, let alone a future.

JC never thought of that as sex. On some level, he was still a romantic stuck on semantics.

With Chris that night, he didn't quite know where to put his hands, and Chris' zipper was a bitch to open because it got stuck on the fabric, and Chris liked kissing. They had spent thirty minutes just kissing on the couch, so it was a while before JC even got his shirt off, a while before his sweat slick skin started to make embarrassing noises on the leather couch that had both of them laughing like loons.

Chris was the initiator that night, not that JC ever went unwillingly. Chris paid lavish attention to each nipple and JC found out that night how sensitive and how erotic that was, those cat-like bites and licks.

When Chris held JC's cock in his hand, it was a few minutes of tender stroking and pumping, with Chris kissing JC with his serpentine tongue, JC seeming to lose control of his limbs, knocking Chris's bottle as well as his, tipping it into the waiting cactus plant. Its contents flowed out in a stream, barely touched. Not that they noticed, as engrossed as they were in what they were doing.

Later on that night, when they had fallen asleep on the couch, their legs hanging off the sides like centipede legs, their arms in weird contortions, Chris knocked off the rest of the case, the bottles falling but not shattering. The bottles rolled along JC's floor, unopened, going their own different directions.

***

 

When Chris finally opened the door, JC just stared at him for a few minutes, at a complete and utter loss for words. JC had been pounding on the door for a good ten minutes beforehand.

"You have to say something I really like for me to want to let you in, Jayce," Chris said.

JC opened and closed his mouth for a few times, collecting his thoughts in a panic.

"Um," he started, "I think I know how I screwed up. I think I can fix it, if you let me."

Chris barked out a laugh, shaking his head. "Fuck," he said a little bitterly, "I wanted more than that." There was a trace of sadness on Chris's lips, a stain JC badly wanted to wipe off with his fingers. Chris sighed heavily, then said, "Come in anyway" and listlessly walked into his house.

It wasn't the best, it wasn't the most romantic, and it certainly didn't go the way JC wanted because he pictured it with Chris forgiving him fervently after JC spoke grand, poetic words of apology. It was a second chance though. He took what he got and planned on making it better this time around.

 

THE END


End file.
